What kind of tools grant the greatest possible agency to their users? What qualities do convivial tools possess? What social, political-economic, and ecological changes are associated with a potential shift to more conviviality?
Please bring laptops if you have them!
To be read for today’s class:
- Ivan Illich, excerpt from “Convivial Reconstruction” in Tools for Conviviality (Marion Boyars, [1973] 2009): 20-26 [start with the first full paragraph on p. 20, and stop at the break after “…so called ‘underdeveloped areas”; those interested in the use of human beings as tools might also like to read pp. 26-32] […and remember: you’ll be prompted to log in to access our copyrighted readings!]
- London’s Design Museum hosted a Convivial Tools symposium last October. Why the contemporary resonance of this concept, do you think?
- Suzanne Fischer, “Why the Landline Telephone Was the Perfect Tool,” The Atlantic (April 16, 2012).
- Mads Soegaard, “Affordances,” The Glossary of Human Computer Interaction (n.d.).
- If you’ve chosen to respond to today’s texts, please post your reading response by 11:59pm the night before class!